


Like a Bad Version of Freaky Friday

by kateandbarrel



Category: Haven - Fandom
Genre: Bodyswap, Gen, Gift Fic, Humor
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-12-18
Updated: 2013-12-18
Packaged: 2018-01-05 00:38:56
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,305
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1087518
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kateandbarrel/pseuds/kateandbarrel
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Just another day in Haven.. where Nathan wakes up in Duke's body, and Duke wakes up in Nathan's.</p>
<p>Set approximately mid-season 4.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Like a Bad Version of Freaky Friday

**Author's Note:**

> Holiday gift fic for my lovely friend Vai. I hope you enjoy :D

The air stank of ocean. Not the good sort of ocean, where it’s just slightly salty and fresh. But the deep, dank, I-spent-all-day-on-a-boat-gutting-fish type of ocean. The kind of ocean the tourists don’t come to a town like Haven to see. Or smell, as the case may be. But there was that offensive scent of ocean, and something distinctly metallic. Kinda like… rust? 

Nathan scrunched his nose in defense against the myriad of smells that assaulted him before he’d even opened his eyes, and he rolled over, colliding with a body in the bed next to him. 

_Audrey._

Offensive odor forgotten, he snuggled up to her, winding his arms around her waist and burying his face in her hair. She made an appreciative noise, her voice full of sleep and coming out higher pitched than usual.

“Morning,” Nathan mumbled into her hair, and he tightened his arms around her. She felt a bit… bonier. “Have you lost weight?” he asked. “You feel different.”

“You know you should never ask a girl about her weight,” came the sleepy response. In a voice that sounded absolutely nothing like Audrey’s. It wasn't Audrey's sleepy voice. It wasn't _Audrey's_ voice, period.

Nathan froze, and slowly opened his eyes to a faceful of short, dark brown hair. He jerked back, a strangled noise escaping from his throat. The woman, whoever she was, rolled over in confusion and stared at him. 

“Jennifer?!” Nathan cried out, once he saw who he was sharing a bed with. “What - what are you doing here? Where’s Audrey?”

Jennifer’s mouth dropped open. “Are you kidding me right now? 'Where's Audrey?'”

Nathan stumbled out of the bed, wanting to put distance between him and Jennifer, but his arms and legs refused to cooperate with him. They felt a little strange… but he didn’t have time to dwell. He had more important things to think about, like the fact that Jennifer was in Audrey’s bed, and -

He cut off his own thoughts as he looked around. This wasn’t Audrey’s room above the Grey Gull. This room was dark. 

And rusty. 

And smelled of ocean.

Nathan turned to Jennifer in confusion. “Is this the Cape Rouge? What the hell am I doing here?”

“Why wouldn’t you be on your own boat, Duke?” Jennifer said angrily. “I really think the better question is what am _I_ doing here? I thought we were past this but I guess some things can’t be gotten over!”

“Did you just call me Duke?” Nathan asked, ignoring the rest of what she’d said. “Jennifer, what’s going on?”

“I could ask you the same thing!” Jennifer got out of the bed, dragging sheets and blanket with her as she tried to keep herself wrapped up in them, in the process pulling them off Nathan. 

It was then that he realized he was naked. He looked around for his clothes and couldn’t find them - just Duke’s stuff - so he settled for covering himself with a pillow. 

“Look, Jennifer,” Nathan began, not quite sure exactly what to say. Apparently… they’d had sex? How did that even happen? He would never cheat on Audrey. And why would Jennifer sleep with him? None of it made sense. “I don’t know what happened last night, or, apparently, just how drunk I must’ve gotten, but I’m in love with Audrey.”

Jennifer snorted, her back to him as she put on her clothes. “Duke, you are really a piece of work sometimes.”

“You called me Duke again,” Nathan said. “Okay, something’s wrong with you. Jennifer, I’m not Duke.”

Jennifer had put on enough clothes to be decent, so she turned to face him. Her face clearly said Are you crazy? “Something’s wrong with _me_?”

“It’s me, Nathan. Nathan Wuornos? I kept yelling at you all those times?”

Jennifer blinked, then came around the bed and pulled at Nathan’s arm, dragging him awkwardly away as he kept hold of the pillow over his crotch, towards a mirror on the wall.

“What are you-?” Nathan said, but the rest of his question died in his throat once he saw his reflection. The sight that greeted him was familiar, but certainly not his own face. 

It was Duke’s.

“Oh God,” Nathan said, turning to Jennifer in horror. “I’m Duke.”

***

At the same time, a very similar exchange was taking place at the Grey Gull.

"Nathan, you're not making any sense," Audrey was saying. 

"No, I'm making plenty of sense, you're just not listening. I'm not Nathan. I'm _Duke_." Duke looked in the mirror again, at Nathan's eyes staring back at him. This was incredibly weird. "Believe me Audrey, once upon a time I would have loved waking up in bed next to you. But in this case? Not so much."

Audrey came up to him and put a hand on his shoulder - well, on Nathan's shoulder. She furrowed her brows for a second. "You're right. You're not Nathan in there."

"How can you tell?" Duke asked, though he was relieved he wasn't actually crazy in some way. 

"I don't know. It's just a sense... a vibration of wrongness somehow. Like a square peg in a round hole."

"So, if I'm Duke, but I'm in Nathan's body, does that mean...?"

"Nathan must be in your body."

“This is like a bad version of Freaky Friday. And that was a terrible movie to begin with, so that’s saying something.”

“Duke, were you with Jennifer last night?” Audrey asked suddenly.

Comprehension dawned on him. “Oh no. We gotta get to the boat."

***

Duke and Audrey had barely made it down the stairs and into the parking lot before they ran into Nathan - in Duke’s body - and a very perturbed looking Jennifer. Nathan and Duke walked up to each other and slowly circled around the other, eying themselves up and down.

"Nathan," Duke said, in Nathan's own voice.

"Duke?" Nathan asked unbelievably. "This is weird."

"Understatement," Jennifer mumbled. 

Duke turned to her. "Are you okay?" 

"I'm fine," she said. "I just had the rudest wake up call ever."

"Nathan's not really a people person," Duke smirked. 

"It's odd to see that smirk on my own face," Nathan cringed. "We gotta fix this. Audrey?"

Audrey shrugged. "Clearly it's a trouble, but its not one I know about. It's neither of yours, obviously."

"Another supersized trouble?" Nathan asked. "Half the town might be affected if that’s the case."

"This is going to be really hard to explain away by a gas leak," Jennifer quipped. 

"We'll just leave that part to Dwight," Audrey said. "We need to fix this first."

"Who would have a body swapping trouble?" Duke asked.

"Your guess is as good as mine," Audrey replied. She put her hand in her chin and thought. "But maybe we don't have to hunt down the troubled person. Maybe they can come to us."

"How's that?" Nathan asked.

"Let's go see Vince and Dave," was all Audrey said.

***

The Haven Herald office contained the pair of eccentric journalists, hunched over notebooks at their desks, as usual. They didn't seem aware of the current trouble run amok, but were quite interested to hear of it.

"So Nathan and Duke have switched bodies?" Dave asked, curiously peering into each of their faces. He prodded at them, and Duke swatted away Dave’s finger whenever it got too close to his - Nathan’s - face.

"Fascinating," Vince said. "But a mild inconvenience, I would suppose."

"Mild?" Nathan mumbled irritably. 

"Do your own troubles stay with your bodies? Or have they... transferred with your consciousness?" Dave asked.

Duke looked down at Nathan's generally unfeeling hands. He hadn’t been paying attention. "Let's see." He put his hand on Jennifer's face, and was dismayed to feel absolutely nothing. "Wow. I don't feel you." He put his other hand on the other side of her face, and smooshed her cheeks. "Like, at all."

"You can let go now," Jennifer said between squished cheeks. 

Duke dropped his hands and turned to Nathan. "Your trouble sucks, man."

"Yeah, thanks," Nathan said drily. 

"So how can we help?" Vince asked.

"It's going to take way too long to figure out who the troubled person is. We'd have to go interview everyone in town to figure out who is in wrong bodies or not." Audrey sighed. "So, I have an idea. You guys aren’t gonna like it.”

“When do we ever?” Nathan asked.

“We have to put an announcement in the paper about the handprint. That has to be the cause of this, and it’s the quickest way to find out the original owner of this trouble."

"How's that going to work?" Nathan asked. "'Hey, has anyone found a glowy handprint on themselves lately? If so, give Audrey Parker a call!'"

"Sure, why not?" Audrey asked.

Vince and Dave looked at each other in silent communication. 

"Well," Vince said. "We wouldn't phrase it exactly like that. But we can do something to that effect." 

"Just say it's a side effect of a radioactive spill," Jennifer shrugged. “That ought to scare people enough to come forward.”

"Good enough," Dave said and winked at her. "I knew there was a reason we hired you."

***

While Vince and Dave put together a special afternoon edition of the paper, with the announcement about the handprint, Nathan, Duke, Audrey, and Jennifer went to the Grey Gull to wait. Duke assumed his usual spot behind the counter and prepared them four shot glasses of whiskey. "I think we all need this," he said, and handed out the glasses of brown liquid.

"It's weird to see Nathan fixing drinks," Audrey said, grinning.

"Don't get used to it," Nathan said darkly. He slumped onto a stool. "We need to fix this trouble as soon as we can."

"You know, I haven't been here long, but from what I can tell this is one of the less harmful troubles I've ever seen," Jennifer said, taking the shot glass Duke handed her. She sniffed it experimentally and took a sip - and started coughing. "Woo. Strong stuff."

Duke grinned and drained his glass. 

"Yeah, well, maybe nobody's died, yet, but this is still pretty bad," Nathan groused. "I have to pee really bad. Or should I say, Duke does. And has for about the past two hours."

"Dude!" Duke yelled. "You wanna give me some kind of kidney problem? Go pee!"

"No way," Nathan said. "I already got a peek this morning. Nice of you to sleep naked, by the way. But I don't need another look. I definitely don't need to be _touching_ anything."

Audrey laughed, and Jennifer joined in.

"You've got to be kidding me," Duke said. "It's just a penis."

"Yeah. _Your_ penis. And I'm not in the habit of getting up close and personal with your penis, alright?"

"So if it was some other guy's penis you wouldn't have a problem?" Duke asked with a smirk. 

Audrey was laughing so hard at that point she had her head down on the bar. Nathan gave her shaking shoulders a dirty look. “Thanks for the support,” he grumbled.

"I could help," Jennifer said between her own giggles. "It's nothing I haven't seen. Or touched."

Nathan's eyes widened comically on Duke's face. "No!"

"You can't not pee until we figure this out," Audrey finally managed to say after catching her breath and pulling her head up. "What if it takes a day?"

"Or more?" Jennifer supplied.

"Fine," Nathan grumbled. "But I'm going to need this." He picked up his shot glass of whiskey and drank it quickly. "I'll just... keep my eyes closed."

"Don't get it everywhere!" Duke shouted after Nathan. "Or you have to clean it up!"

***

Besides the peeing incident, the rest of the day continued fairly normally. There were a few people who came to the bar sharing stories of bodyswapping incidents as well. Lots of people sought out Audrey, just for her to tell them to wait it out, because she was working on a solution. 

There didn't seem to be much of a pattern to the swapping that Audrey could discern. Family members, friends, coworkers, even complete strangers were afflicted. It was like all the other incidents of handprint-fueled troubles. Just random.

Some of the patrons of the Grey Gull remarked on Nathan being the one serving everyone drinks, and Duke had a great time telling everyone he was tired of being the "dour cop" and was putting a little fun into his life. Nathan sat at one end of the bar giving him dirty looks every time he said this, and drinking many, many beers. Nathan was annoyed at being stuck in Duke’s body, but even more annoyed that Duke was in his. At one point Duke went to the bathroom for ten minutes, and Nathan cringed to think of what was going on in there.

They could tell when the Haven Herald afternoon edition went out, because Audrey's phone started ringing even more than before. She went running out with the first couple reports of handprints, but after they kept turning out to be dirt smudges or birthmarks, she started just asking people to describe the handprint over the phone. The people of Haven were terrified of the troubles and although nobody ever stated explicitly that's what this was about, most people just knew. But it also made everyone a bit paranoid.

Eventually, a real tip came through.

"Can you describe it?" Audrey asked, for what felt like the 80th time that day, twirling a straw in her soda distractedly. 

"Kind of golden? It kinda glows. I know that sounds weird - "

Audrey straightened. "No. That's it exactly. Where are you?” Everyone watched as she wrote down an address.

“I'll be right there." She hung up the phone, and Nathan, Duke, and Jennifer all stared at her in anticipation. "I think this is it, guys."

Duke left one of his employees in charge and the four of them piled into Audrey's car and took off. The person who reported the handprint lived in an RV at the edge of town. They found him outside, sitting in a lawn chair, drinking a beer.

"You the one who called about the handprint? Darren, right?" Audrey asked. 

"Yup," he said. He rolled up a sleeve. "Right here."

Audrey stepped closer and looked at it. It was one of the mysterious handprints, alright. She looked back at the others, none of whom could see it, which only confirmed its supernatural origin.

"You know about the troubles?" she asked him.

"Of course. Who doesn't?" Darren didn't seem too bothered.

"What is your trouble?"

"Well now, that’s a question. Tell me, what do you see when you look around me?" Darren asked.

Audrey glanced at their surroundings. There were broken electronics - tvs and vacuum cleaners - littering the ground around his RV, piles of empty beer cans, and a distinct air of sadness. "Well..." she said, but didn't know what to say that wouldn't sound mean.

"Exactly. My family's never really had much. We get along alright, sure, but take a look down there." Darren pointed behind them. 

Audrey turned to look. Where they were was up on a hill, and the view of Haven Harbor was clear from here. She could see boats, and the nicer houses on the water. She turned back to Darren sympathetically.

"This little plot of land is about the only thing my family's got, and it's been passed down for generations. But for generations, we've come out our front doors and seen all that other families have got. Sometimes it makes you angry, or jealous."

"So your family - you swap bodies with people. People whose lives you wished you had."

"Yup," Darren said, and took another swig of his beer. 

"Darren, that handprint?" Audrey pointed at it. "It's amplifying your trouble. Instead of affecting you, it's affecting other people around you."

"Come again?"

Nathan and Duke stepped forward. "We've swapped bodies," Nathan said. “And so have a few dozen other people in town.”

"Huh," Darren replied. "Well that's weird. It only ever happened before with someone in my family. And I obviously ain’t switched bodies with anyone."

"That's the handprint's influence," Audrey said. "We can't explain it yet. But we need to help you."

"Help me? How you gonna do that? Got a winning lotto number for me?" 

"No. But think about this, Darren. Your family has something some of those rich people down there will never have."

"What?" Darren asked suspiciously.

"Pride. Your family has been in Haven since...?"

"Since the town was founded," Darren supplied. 

"Exactly. You belong here. This is your home, and that's something to be proud of. It doesn't matter how much money you have, because you have a place here. And you always will."

Darren considered her words. "Yeah, I suppose that's true."

Audrey looked at Nathan and Duke, who shrugged. Darren wasn't fixed yet.

Audrey turned back to the man. "Do you hate your life, Darren?" she tried another tactic.

"Well, no, not really."

Audrey smiled. "I had a feeling. You like it here, in the woods."

"It's peaceful."

"You know what those rich people do every day?"

"I don't know, go to parties and eat caviar?"

Audrey shook her head. "No. They work long hours at boring jobs. They have to worry about profit margins and quarterly sales figures. They have images to hold up, which means keeping on top of fashion and the stock market and business news. They have to pretend to be friends with people they hate because that's the game they play."

Darren narrowed his eyes at the harbor below them. "That doesn't sound very fun."

"Exactly, it doesn't. Most of those rich people don't get the enjoyment from their life that you do. Their lives are a chore. So, maybe they never have to worry about bills. But they also can never just sit here in the woods, and drink a beer, and listen to the birds."

Darren nodded slowly. "You might be right."

"Forget those rich people, huh? Just live your own life, for you."

Darren finished his beer. "I think you're right, miss. I'm gonna start by going for a walk in the woods. Thanks."

Audrey smiled at him, then turned to Nathan and Duke. "Well?"

The two men looked at each other. Nathan reached out to poke Duke in the face, who slapped at his finger.

"We're back," said Nathan, who was actually Nathan. The relief in his voice was palpable.

"Thank God," Duke said. He took a step but nearly fell over. He put a hand to his head. "Nathan, how much did you drink?"

"Just a few beers."

"A few, or a few _dozen?_ "

Nathan shrugged. "It felt good."

"No way did this feel good," Duke rebutted. 

"Feeling always feels good. Even if it's a bad feeling."

"I think I'm gonna puke," Duke said. Jennifer swung his arm over her shoulder to support him back to the car. "Thanks, man. This is my grand reward for being nice to you in your body. Well - mostly."

"Mostly?" Nathan asked. "Hey, wait! What does that mean?"

Duke grinned. "Guess you'll find out."

Audrey laughed, and the four (mostly) friends filed into her car, to the next adventure Haven had to offer.

***

Later that night, while Nathan was in the bathroom getting ready for bed, Audrey heard him yelp. She burst through the door, worried she'd find him splayed on the ground, head busted open on the floor. Instead, she found him in front of the mirror... fondling his nipple.

" _What_ are you doing?" Audrey asked.

"I'm gonna kill Duke," was all Nathan said, before facing Audrey. She peered at his chest to see what it was that had made him so upset.

There, on Nathan's left nipple, was a little silver ring.

Years later, Audrey would still cite that moment as the hardest she'd ever laughed.


End file.
